Prayer as Consecration

There are moments, if not often, when we feel that Mother alone is enough, nothing is needed. At those moments one feels sweet all over the body. It is not the body that feels sweet, it is the being which is felt in the body. Those who have had it once, will scarcely forget it for the rest of their lives. One imagines whether it cannot stay forever. When Indira died, a cabinet minister wanted to be installed as Prime Minister before the next one was elected, at least for one day. When he was refused, he toned down his request to one hour! One may have been in the cabinet for decades but to be its leader for a short time, however short it is, is not given to anyone. It is not one hour or one day, it is his reaching the peak. A mountain of thousands of mile spreads itself and rises to a small peak. The small peak at the top presupposes a wide enormous mountain below. Still, there are no mountains that are all peaks. The theory of evolution says that when peaks multiply in a great number, the mountain rises to a further height making the erstwhile peak the fort.

The sweetness and thrill that is caused by wanting only the Mother can become permanent. When it does so, our aspiration rises one grade - from physical, vital, mental upwards - or deepens into consecration. The experience of sweetness is the greatest achievement of a devotee, a lifetime achievement, but as against the requirements of surrender which Sri Aurobindo called difficult, it is a drop in the ocean. A prudent, frugal government employee saves all his life and retires with several lakhs of savings, which very few others have succeeded in doing. But if he wants to start an industry, his enormous savings cannot even buy a plot for his future factory or maybe enough to erect a compound wall. Mostly it may be abundant for preoperative expenses. Surrender, said Sri Aurobindo, is difficult. But there is nothing wrong in attempting it. It is great.

In a democracy anyone is given the RIGHT to head the nation, but not all have that capacity. In a free society like ours, no one is prevented from great success; but in practice very few achieve that. This is a truism in life which, by inversion, becomes a superstition. This superstition is at the basis of fundamentalism, and enables tyrants at home as well as at work to be tyrannical. Just now we see how blatantly labour, the poor, the children, the woman, the weak were exploited in earlier centuries. There is a higher spiritual truth in such tyranny. We shall only consider the psychological-social realities in such situations. They differ.

The strong really believe they are disciplining the weak and theirs is a service.

The weak reciprocate it with a similar emotion and teach themselves to be disciplined.

The strong find their cruel instincts emerging and enjoy it. 1

The weak are helpless and submit out of necessity.

The cruel strong persuade themselves with self-righteousness.

The helpless weak, whose instinct is to rebel, use their minds to convince themselves of the rightness of the situation.

I confine myself to the last description. This is superstition, folly, and self-inflicted pain. As the depressed person comes to be attached to this depression and does not allow the depression to leave him, the superstitious righteous weak accept their fate as a virtue of necessity. In them, the subconscious grows in revolt. When these people emerge in an altered social situation where they are masters, they tend to be cruel and enjoy their cruelty. That is why, though it is a distant and distorted version of this phenomenon, it is said that a chaste woman is also capable of murder.

When people are utterly free to change their religion, caste, party, faith, etc., they CHOOSE not to change, though they see the other religion, caste, faith etc. is far superior. In the measure one willingly, knowingly, happily chooses to adhere to a principle which does not work, he becomes a superstitious tyrant, tyrannizing over himself.

This is an age-old problem which man has solved in several ways.

First an foremost, they become superstitious victims to their own folly.

They are sources of cruelty to others.

Each person is RESOURCEFUL at his own level of personality. At that level, they make an ideal of their superstition. 2

Thus, they effectively prevent their further progress.3

A solution is open to them at their level. Instead of INSISTING on their own personalities as the ultimate mould for their future growth, they must consider alternatives. Whether persons of No. 2 category have a solution in Mother? They have. They knock against the wall of tradition and try to bend Mother to fit into that groove or mould. Instead, if they shift to Mother and gently, but REALLY rely on Mother, they will witness the phenomenon of the tradition changing in their own context in a limited way. How many times have we not seen it. Again there is the distinction between prayer, our own requirement and consecration, the will of the Mother.

Aspiration - Consecration - Surrender is the progression. By a perversion, one mistakes one's own prayer for consecration and that leads him to take the result as Mother's will. It is not Mother's will, it is his own will, which he takes to be Mother's will.

Suppose a person at this stage AWAKENS, what should he do?

Genuinely shift to consecration.

Practice that consecration in daily activities and see the infinite power (an attack that can debilitate one for life disappears in a trice).

Such a superstition will not go unless one initiates oneself into non-stop growth.

Please consider the nine stages that end in surrender.

Faith -- worship - obedience

Adoration - self-giving - Delight

Love - Ecstasy -- Surrender.

To reach Faith, one does so at the fourth stage. Shakti, Viryam, Deiva prakriti, Shraddha (faith). Our work just now is lifeless. First we must put Shakti into it, i.e. must do it at the peak of physical efficiency. Next, one has to put into it the intensity of temperament (viryam), i.e. one must do the work with the greatest possible interest. Bill Gate's work qualifies for these two levels. Next, our prakriti must be changed into Deiva prakriti, i.e. our force must be replaced by divine Force. Finally, work must be done not by our belief in our capacity, or social rules or mechanical efficiency of our tool, BUT relying solely on the Divine, i.e. Shraddha (faith). The nine levels start with Faith. Are we capable of it? Where then is the question of the ninth level of surrender? It does not mean it should not be attempted. Only that we are 13 steps before that surrender. "I shall tell Mother," is fit language for one in the 13th stage which is surrender. Till then, this will lead to self-deception.

Suppose the index for the Daily Messages is looked up in the first three volumes, there are at least 60 or 70 messages which describe the various states of mind that aspire for surrender. That must clear any possible doubt.

In practice, we tell Mother when we see no way out. When a work is possible for us, we forget Mother, or if we remember, we ask Her to fulfill our desire or work. It is not telling Mother at all. One can speak to Mother only when we are conscious of our problem and ourselves, better still conscious of Mother. When we do feel conscious of a problem or ourselves, we can look inside and see that we do NOT want to speak to Mother. Sincerity will unfailingly show where we are conscious or not. The only alternative to insincerity is to change into sincerity. This shift is heavy, difficult, and must be undertaken carefully, slowly and gradually.

Locate a work where you are unconscious, forget Mother - e.g. starting to read a book - make a decision to catch yourself in the act at least once in ten acts and achieve a breakthrough. Physical urge, vital energy or mental preference will have a marked liking of our forgetting. It has to be met, handled, broken, and progress made. The key lies in the strategy and its sincerity.

Sincerity uses sincere strategies.

Insincerity uses insincere strategies.

Symptoms of change:

Firstly, you may discover that you are more unconscious than you assumed.

Another great discovery will be that you may forget the experiment for a few months which means you don't want to change.

Catch your FIRST waking thought. If this comes to you, there is hope.

Each time a choice is to be made, catch yourself and see on which side you are.

Leveling off:

Suppose water is pumped out and you watch it. You will see water collecting around the pump and running along the gradient. After four hours of pumping when an acre of land will be irrigated, if the water runs along properly constructed channels, you will see here a pool of water around the pump and a stream running along the gradient almost wasting 90% of it. When human energy is channeled, it can achieve something. Take a boy who applied himself to studies and rose to be a collector. Take another of his age and circumstance who, given freedom, has roamed all over, spent a lot of money and become a senior clerk in a local office. That is the difference which is unpardonable. But when the latter has developed a philosophy and justifies his actions, it is willful ignorance. Our devotees praying to Mother and imagining that to be consecration is such a superstitious crime. The secret lies here for anyone to see. One who sees and wants to change has hope. Those who enter the bypaths of life have a few hundreds in which to divert themselves.

The fashion in which one levels off will be determined by 1) the family, 2) the society, 3) fashion of the hour, 4) our own preferences, 5) available energy, et. Instead of all these determining our future, our own decision to progress should decide at each moment. Without man arriving at such a decision and renewing it periodically each time, leveling off will be inevitable. If a philosophical justification is added to it, the fate of progress is sealed.

The truth here is, the lazy man as well as the dynamic person has to level off at some time. Therefore, the lazy man will have a subconscious justification that he is not very different from the dynamic man. It is true the process of leveling off is the same. What is also true is one does so at the first step and the other at the tenth step.

He who refuses to level off is a devotee.

Mother says She would never give us a single opportunity to lie. I shall recast it as, "Mother gives innumerable opportunities to those who have decided to progress and not level off."

If one understands this article, the following will help. Review in this light:

the lives of your friends and relatives who have achieved.

The lives of those who failed.

Those who justify their position.

Those who complain against fate, Mother, life and every other thing.

The above exercise will help you understand, not achieve. You have to repeat this exercise or examination with respect to each of your successes and each of your failures. That will surely enlighten you as to what you should do. The horse has now been taken to the water front. It is now up to him to drink.

Consider some explanations we have and the theoretical consequences that may arise out of them if expanded into an explanation:

1) Our subconscious activities are on the alert, maybe more on the alert than our conscious awareness.

2) Man has the capacity to believe that his ideas are acts.

3) Man can be totally oblivious of an apparent truth.

4) Man can believe himself to be the very opposite of what he really is.

5) He can harbour the very ridiculous belief that the part is the whole.

Sri Aurobindo's yoga is often described as the unconscious becoming conscious. Of course, the subconscious becoming conscious is its part. This means we must be aware of the functions or functionings of our involuntary muscles and organs - heart, liver, brain, etc. It is here man is most alert. Surrender, consecration, ‘I shall tell Mother', will be true to one who is aware of Mother, as these activities are self-aware in ourselves.

Observe others for this phenomenon. One would expect a promotion after passing an examination. Now, when he has not yet appeared for it, he would be disappointed by not getting the promotion because in his mind, his agreeing to pass the exam is converted into an accomplished fact that he has already passed it. We take surrender like that.

Suppose in a company where there are four persons each of whom has invested one crore out of simple goodness of friendship, a fifth person is included in their conversations. The fifth person will have ‘a true complaint' of not getting his share of profits, totally forgetting that he has no investment there.

Anyone in a family or a company of several thousand workers believes that the company is his and there will be no company if he goes away. He believes the company owes its all to him. This is what he calls his devotion to the company.

"Let me speak to Mother" is one version of such follies that man has. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, MAN is selfish. He even says that he was selfish. The human organism is created as a selfish creature. Ego is developed to justify it. ALL our thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, and acts are the expressions of that ego and that selfishness. Each time we give expression to such an act or thought, we fortify our ego, instead of destroying it.

Consciousness - issues involved in accepting Mother

HE alone chooses, it is never given to Man to choose Him.

This is so because it is the Original Ignorance where the Play began.

The enjoyment of the Play resides in man not being able to awake himself.

That Original Ignorance, apart from expressing itself as six other Ignorances, also expresses as sensitivities, propensities of desire, preferences of mind, spiritual partialities for the spirit and the inability in Overmind. To convert consecration into prayer is one of them.

Vices or inefficiencies or imperfections of the next plane can express themselves here as virtues, abilities, perfections and can be ideals that generate sentiments and sensitivities.

There is an evolutionary significance in Sri Aurobindo giving up His bodily existence.

- Mother called it the betrayal of the sadhaks.

- She changed it several times as non-cooperation, lack of response, etc. and finally toned it down to humanity's disregard for the Avatar.

- It is seen in Sri Aurobindo being compelled to speak or do things against His wont.

- Descent of Supermind, reunion of Pakistan suffered that fate.

- Bengal famine would have been prevented had Bengal asked for Help.

- Communal carnage of 1948 in Naokali did not awaken Bengal to aspiration.

- Such an awakening is psychic awakening which was not seen.

- The issue before this article is NOT the absence of that awakening, but the cherished love of the unconsciousness whose sleep in the tenebrous womb the soul seeks.

- The very sweetness in the flesh, the acme of spiritual attainment, is not so appealing as the enjoyment of expansive cruelty to a daughter-in-law.

The very first step in this direction is Silence in the mind. I am trying to achieve the goal by talking or writing, both of which are self-defeating strategies.

Doing only those things that come to us from outside, without our taking initiative, is the only remedy.

Giving up the initiative, which is the hallmark of surrender remains the one supreme remedy.

Next best is to learn to make an offering or to earn the recipient's offering while our attitude compels us to give. The inherent contradiction in Chapter I, Life Divine, cryptically rising in daily life.

Giving of God, if responded to by man with self-giving, we can say the Time has come.

The formula is, "Evoke self-giving by Self-giving." That will be the Hour.

The Self-giving is not from the surface, but from the psychic in the subliminal.

The subliminal is the meeting place of the subconscient and the Superconscient.

Psychic response is symbolic of the subconscient evoking the response of the Superconscient.

The social waves of fashion are the unleashing of the depths on the surface.

It can be of the subconscient or of the Superconscient.

Revolutions bring out the subconscient ocean to the surface. All development moves - Tom Peters, Gorbachev, Berlin Wall, Chrysler, New Deal, Model T, technological advancements, Internet, as their crown the revolution of rising expectations - bring the social Superconscient to its surface.

It reduces to the point when Leslie happily and cheerfully offers to work and I have the patience for her to evolve to good cheer.

Personality

Human personality is complex, graded, multifaceted and unique. How does it receive grace and grow?

Brain is the physical mental; nerves are the vital mental; mind i.e. pure mind is the mental mental and the manomaya Purusha is the spiritual mental.

So, the four planes are subdivided into 16 sub planes.

For an external view, they are disparate, not connected with each other, not dependent on each other, i.e. each is capable of growing on its own to its maximum height. That is why we find a good man as a fool; a wicked man resourceful, etc. Personality grows by the influence of the environment, not from inside.

Progress, development, and evolution mean the measure of the inner control over the external.

This growth is known as skill on the scale of Skill-Capacity-Talent-Ability.

Man has learnt walking, talking, writing, etc. For hundreds of years the physical man crawled and finally learned walking. Now that he is civilized, he has inherited the skills of walking in his cells and genes. He does not learn walking anymore as his ancestors learned it, but his mind learns walking and transfers those skills to the body where the dormant skills awake. Man's effort is confined to activating his mind and patiently transferring it to the cells. The vast reservoir of latent skills awakens to perform the miracle of walking.

Our argument here is the FORCE is there in the bodily cells. The spiritual GRACE is there too. We are mainly concentrating on force and grace whereas all the powers of Satchidananda are there hidden. They will come in 30,000 years just as the early man has learnt walking. If we can receive Mother's GRACE in our minds and teach the mind the ways of grace and patiently transfer them to the body, the giant that is sleeping there will awake to raise us to Supermind. I ask only for FORCE or GRACE to be awakened like that. There are 96 such powers to be so awakened.

What is needed on the part of the devotee is mental consent, mental receptivity which can make her a sadhak. Presently we meet with mental resistance.

As the beating of the heart, breathing, digestion, etc. were learnt consciously by the animate organism and were handed over to the subconscious, so too receiving the Grace must be learnt consciously and passed on to the subconscious.

Receptivity to Mother abridges a long process into a short one. My article refers only to receiving LUCK and FORCE.

The process of the learning moving to the subconscious from conscious is occult. Only the Supermind sees the process.

In the article on Sat-Brahman in Tamil, I mention the eight levels of knowledge and explain knowledge at each level. The twelve aspects I mention there are the fundamental spiritual determinants. So, each of these twelve aspects has eight levels, thus making 96 levels. These 96 levels include the entire world and its skills. All the rest are the result of their interplay which may run into 9600 or 96,000.

Man has to learn each of them one after the other. That is why he takes several thousand births to reach liberation. For example, memory is one which exists on all these levels.

Now compare an agriculture labourer who has shifted to Delhi or New York as a child. Man took 500 years to build these cities. This child in New York does not take 500 years or 50 years to become a New Yorker. He grows into a New York citizen.

The truth is, anyone who accepts New York will directly grow into a New York citizen.

So, I suggest a parallel method for LUCK and of course FORCE.

The agriculture labourer growing into a citizen of a modern city is a process by which mind abridges the period of physical drudgery and labour. We call this Social Evolution. People call this urbanization.

Above the mind are four levels and then Supermind. Mother is above Supermind in consciousness.

As New York abridges the social evolution of 500 years, so Mother abridges the spiritual evolution of 30,000 years.

I am asking for the use of Mother's Force to abridge social evolution.

Obviously, this is a small goal for a vast force. Hence, results arrive in a flash and the devotee finds herself at the social summit in a trice.

Sri Aurobindo says that as there are several levels, when man ascends to each higher level, the forces of that level fully descend on the lower levels till they are saturated.

You may say the labourer in New York may be a New York citizen but may lack the inner psychological poise or outer cultural polish of smoothness.

It is true. He reaches the top social layer. But in that layer which he occupies it depends upon his further effort for him to acquire culture. As he socially advances, his own efforts will raise him culturally too, when he takes effort. For the present, I would be satisfied if our devotees reach the social summit of knowledge, fame, power or wealth.

One may accept Grace positively or negatively. To accept positively means to accept it is grace, knowing its spiritual value. Negatively means we accept it for the material benefits. In addition, one can practise Silent Will as a spiritual discipline or out of fear of speaking, one may keep quiet. Both will bring results but will carry their character as a stamp.

Man exists at a million points. She gives each at the social point she can receive. It is for her to receive, overcoming resistances. One may work on the lands, in an office or a shop. All receive at the point he can most receive, such as patience or perfection or skill, etc.

One who has met a devil in his life, and as a principle of Mother accepts that devil as the outer reflection of his own inner makeup, has taken the attitude of transformation and therefore will receive fully and richly for total transformation.

Mother gives grace for evolution. Man may receive it in his ego and thus allow his ego to develop. That is how the vertical growth turns either into a horizontal growth or rises in a pyramid.

In the West, they expressed punctuality, orderliness, regularity, honesty and honour to perfection in their work. These are values, i.e. spiritual skills. Expressing spiritual skills in physical work, they realized Brahman in Matter. Cleanliness is the greatest of such values. Brahman in Matter came to them as prosperity.

We have realized the Brahman in Spirit. It has pervaded the nation and infused the bodies of men with light. We did not follow the above values and did not hesitate to use falsehood, lack of honour, clumsiness, late coming, etc. These are values of untruth and falsehood. So we gave up our spirituality and further discovered false values in life which is poverty.

The reasons for the prosperity of the West are several. Two of them stand out. One is their cold climate and the other is the high respect they accord to women. In cold countries one has to earn in six months food for twelve months, which means the efficiency must be double. In the 20th century one main reason for progress all over the world is the spread of democracy that raises the lowliest of men equal to the highest. When low people are treated with greater respect, they are not easily controllable. Naturally, the efficiency must rise high to accomplish anything. From this point of view, the scale on which the prosperity of nations and the scale on which women's rights are plotted may almost be parallel.

The rules of progress are TWO:

1) Let those in the lowest plane accept the highest opportunity possible.

2) Give consciously the lowest person the highest opportunity.

Bengal famine and communal carnage in Calcutta in 1943 and 1947. Sri Aurobindo says that the world forces, sooner or later, have never failed to fulfill His ideas. We know this to be true in scores of occasions. Obviously, had He wished to prevent the famine and carnage, His force would have avoided them. He took the view that His help was there if asked for. Bengal did not ask him to help, nor did the Bengali devotees anywhere. There are two opposite spiritual rules:

1) Grace acts unasked;

2) Grace does not descend if not called down.

A father brings up a son, educates him, and gives him a capital to start an industry. These are the helps he can offer his son. After the industry has started, the boy grows lazy, squanders money, neglects it. Of course, the father can go and sit in the factory, run the shifts, and earn the money for the son to enjoy. The father unfailingly does the first. The second the father should not do. If he does, he spoils the child. It is wrong for him to do so. Sri Aurobindo did not prevent the famine on this principle.

Technology offers the very last man the very highest convenience and commercial profit. What technology offers in material comforts, convenience and vital enjoyment, spirituality offers in psychological well-being and divine riches in human life. Suppose a devotee is in such commerce and uses technology, how can he express Mother in his work?

- What others do for profit, the devotee can do mainly for the profit of the customer.

- Better than that, the devotee can offer the customer his own service, not so much even for his profit as for the customer's well being.

- The above will be served by the consecration of his selling.

- Let the devotee go behind the commercial transaction and then he will see 1) psychological harmony of well being and behind it, 2) the spiritual value of the act. Suppose the devotee relates himself to these planes, his own progress will be in that plane. E.g., the devotee is selling a computer as a trader and makes his profit, offering the customer satisfaction. What is behind it? The customer buys that computer to write his accounts, which is now a bother for him. The devotee must endeavour to know that and try to do his best to explain to the customer how best that psychological relief or joy can be derived. The seller's knowledge of the buyer's psychological relief will enhance it. The sale of a computer gives the seller a few hundred dollars. This would push the exercise deep down. What will be the result? The devotee will find that every area where he sought such a relief unsuccessfully now will offer it copiously. Push a little more behind. Suppose the devotee sees the customer tense, indecisive, wasting his time, clumsy, etc. These are spiritual deficiencies. Let him endeavour to act from the spiritual plane and in a trice he will see the customer calm instead of tense, decisive instead of indecisive, etc. Now the customer makes a spiritual growth. Because of this, the devotee's spiritual growth will receive a spurt which means sales will rise by leaps and bounds.

Mother's consciousness is spiritual technology. How much more effective can it be than engineering technology? It is worth trying.

When you look at people who do not have your endowments, at once you see the difference. Similarly, when you see those who have endowments which you do not have, you comprehend. Take a look around at your friends and relatives and evaluate everyone on this scale. Then evaluate yourself.

As against the maximum level you can rise to, you will know where you are. That is the self-evaluation. It is the gain.

One who is in college can help a high school student. Similarly, those who know more of Mother are a source of knowledge to you. You are a similar source of knowledge to others who know less. Should you try to learn everything you can from those around and teach everyone who is around, without egoism, the progress will be great. Take the attitude to one who teaches you that "Here, in this little affair, you are my guru. "

To offer unegoistically to help is to offer Grace. Do it when the impulsion rises from inside, not altruistically or egoistically.

To ask unegoistically is aspiration. Do it as aspiration, not as asking.

The Summit, the spiritual summit awaits us all the time. It awaits our cheerful acceptance. It does not offer. It waits to be aspired for.

The devotee and the yogi need do nothing other than overcome their resistances and imperfections.

To know where we are [1], to see what She gives [2], to explain each person and each event in that light [3], and to MOVE forward not by our effort [4], but by our surrender is to become a sadhak.[5]

Sincere conscious receptivity & Surrender in good faith.

The ten rules of psychic education are a summary of the above. If someone practices the above and sees the results, I shall be pleased to explain these ten rules in terms of the above.

Presently man's personality is the determinant of his future, his prosperity. The above arguments try to show the composition of human personality in several respects. It takes thousands of years to reach its goal. By knowing one's own personality and Mother's Personality of grace, one is in a position to link them so that the slow evolution of human life is replaced by the quick evolution of Spirit.

To repeat the salient points of such a linking,

Know your own personality;

Know the corresponding points of Mother's Personality

That which links is Truth, Goodness and Love.

Mother's psychic education that gives us ten rules elaborates it. For one to realize the psychic, it needs thirty or forty years, if one is lucky. Doing it non-stop in Mother's atmosphere will achieve it in a few months. The psychic is the soul in Prakriti. We are in Prakriti - mind, vital, body. She wants us to shift from prakriti, not to the soul, but to the evolving soul in Prakriti.

Rule 1:

Rely on the soul, not on the mind.

Rule 2:

Do not seek comfort. The body loves comfort. Denying comfort to the body will enable one to come out of Prakriti. Then one has to move to the psychic through consecration. The body sleeps. When one falls into sleep, he is in the body. By consecrating the sleep - Rule 10 - one enters into the psychic.

Rule 3

Do not seek the work you like. Take interest in the work that comes to you. That way you deny the vital whose prime motive is interest. The vital eats. Eating keeps us in the vital. By consecrating eating - Rule No. 9 - one moves to the psychic.

Rule 4

Do not complain. Complaint is to go outside. The work is inside. By complaining, one goes away from the field of work. One complains by speaking. Thus, he is in the vital part of the speech. By consecration of the speech - Rule No. 8 - one moves to the psychic.

Rule 5

Make a move towards the Divine every time you act. Thus one covers all Time. This covers not a part of the being, but the whole being.

Rule 6

The external reflects the inner situation. This is a supramental rule. It helps one move from mind to the Supermind. By consecrating the act - Rule No. 7 - the entire BEING is consecrated.

When one knows the true nature of consecration as different from prayer, moves away from the ego, studies the composition of one's own personality, evaluates it as against what Mother offers and reviews all this in the light of the rules of psychic education, one becomes sincere enough to receive GRACE and becomes Mother's child.

Levels of Surrender

Surrender for yoga means abolition of mind and vital and the physical learning of all our present skills - eating, seeing, spelling, etc. anew and afresh. That is what Mother experienced when She did the yoga of the body.

Before the body is the vital and prior to that is mind. If Mother works in the body, we must be able to work where we are, i.e. in the mind.

The pity is, our mind in our present state is not fully evolved out of the vital and is still in many issues dominated by the vital. That is why Sri Aurobindo says the release from the vital, the release of Pranamaya Purusha, is the first realization.

A student in B.A., instead of studying his own lessons, realizes that his classmates are now doing M.A. since he had discontinued his studies for a few years. This boy takes up his M.A. books and studies. He does not understand. Assuming that he understands, he would be permitted to write the M.A. exam only after he passes his B.A.. He cannot go by what his own erstwhile classmates do, but by the fact that he is only in B.A. More is to come. He is unable to understand his B.A. lessons as he has not fully understood his P.U.C. lessons. To meaningfully understand his B.A. lessons, he must begin from P.U.C. where his knowledge stopped. P.U.C. is our vital, B.A. the mental, M.A. the spiritual. One can begin only at the point where he is, not where he wants to start.

Suppose we agree to begin in our mind, after clearing the vital arrears, how do we go about it? Can it be illustrated by an event? At what point does the Force act?

Example: the boy in B.A. may live with one who has attained world fame in his subject. The work of the famous man is not only at the top level but extends to very low levels of collecting facts too. The B.A. boy, by virtue of being with his professor and by the professor's interest in him, can work at his own B.A. level collecting the necessary information for the professor. The information by itself is useless. When this information is used to explain one aspect of the professor's theory - there are hundreds of such aspects - by virtue of the professor's theory the student's work would gain in significance and merit publication in internationally reputed journals. The professor would be willing to take the student's articles and have them published in these journals. The boy at the age of 20 will attain world fame. For it to last, he should take his B.A., M.A., Ph.D. and write his own books. For all this to be possible, he should learn what he missed in P.U.C.

Mother offers to do to us in Grace, Luck, Prosperity, Fame, Status, Health, Happiness, etc. what the professor offers to the student. The student should do his part.

Experiences of the devotees resemble the following:

1. A student in Villupuram College gets his articles published in a London magazine. Often the student does not even see a copy. What matters to him is his own friends' opinions, none of whom has heard of the London magazine. The success falls flat.

2. For the boy, what matters is his own professors at Villupuram and his Principal. No one understands his value and laughs. Those who understand grow jealous and put the boy down. The boy expects them to value him and waits for their appreciation in vain.

3. As his own Principal belongs to another school of thought, the boy's article appears to challenge the Principal's authority. The boy in his ‘loyalty' to the elderly Principal comes forward to sacrifice his fame.

What should the boy do?

He should silently work, write article after article, and pass all the exams. Before he passes M.A., he will write a book and become famous. That MAY gain him his Principal's appreciation. NO devotee has come forward for this patient, persistent work so far.